Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton [110]
Your circle of friends and family is responsible for not getting split, for listening without judging, and for understanding that all of us think harsh thoughts while we are breaking up. Validate how bad your friend feels and take any condemnations with a grain of salt. The exception to this rule occurs when a breakup is based on the revelation of serious issues, like domestic violence or destructive substance abuse: there are no easy answers here, because a circle of sexual partners really does need to make judgments about these things. But most of the time, the accusations are about what a thoughtless, selfish, insensitive, needy, bitchy, dishonest, manipulative, passive-aggressive, rude, and stupid oaf that ex-partner is; we have all been all of these at some time or another, so we should be able to understand and forgive.
Happy Endings Are Possible
While breakups are very hard for all concerned, and while we understand that you may feel very angry, sad, abandoned, or ill-treated for a while, we implore you to remember that your soon-to-be-ex-partner is still the same terrific person you used to love, and to burn no bridges. Janet says:
After our divorce, Finn was very angry with me and pretty depressed, and I felt very guilty. Still, for the sake of the kids of whom we had joint custody, we made a point of staying on civil terms. Now, twenty years later, I count him among my best friends and wound up being one of his support people during his serious illness a couple of years back. If we’d been awful to one another back when things were raw and difficult, I don’t think we’d be able to be on such good terms today, and we’d both have missed out on a very important and rewarding friendship.
Smart sluts know, even if they sometimes forget in the heat of conflict, that a breakup need not mean the end of a relationship—it may be, instead, a shift to a different kind of relationship, possibly a relationship between courteous acquaintances, or friends, or maybe even lovers.
Dossie relates:
I dated Bill for two years, during which our connection on all levels was wonderful to me, especially an intense sexual connection: we explored a whole lot of famous firsts together. So we moved in together, and that lasted for all of six months before we blew up in a massive fight and separated. We really did have very different life goals. It was about a year before we could be around each other much, but then we started dating again, and the sex was even hotter and more profound than before. We wound up getting together once a month or so for the following nine years, as good friends and lovers, continuing the lovely steamy sex that had brought us together in the first place.
EXERCISE A Healthy Breakup
Make up a story about a healthy constructive breakup. Include details about how each person could work through difficult feelings. Invent agreements for right after the breakup, for six weeks later, for six months later.
One of the nice things about being an ethical slut is that your relationships don’t have to be either/or: you may have as many ways of relating to your friends and lovers as you have friends and lovers. Once you have survived a breakup, there’s not a lot worse that can go down. A relationship with an ex is real security, a friendship with someone who has seen you at your utter worst. When we know someone with their complete complement of flaws and failings—as we do our exes—we have the foundation of a truly intimate and important relationship that